


all alone on the edge of sleep

by Anonymous



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Inspired by Richard Siken, Inspired by a Mitski Song, Introspection, Post-Canon, Therapy, and also, johnny silverhand's ghost, v's losing her mind honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29784420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: ENTRY #11096: I know I have friends, I do. It’s just. He was my best friend.Johnny, I mean.(or) How to deal with the loss of your brain parasite, as told by V.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: Anonymous





	all alone on the edge of sleep

**Author's Note:**

> "I woke up in the morning and I didn't  
> want anything, didn't do anything,  
> couldn't do it anyway,  
> just lay there listening to the blood  
> rush through me and it never made  
> any sense, anything." - Richard Siken.

“Would you like to talk about him today?” 

Night City looks nice through the window. If V stares long enough, she can pretend that all of Night City is in front of her. There are no gangs, no corporations are fighting for a profit, there is no death or disease.

It’s just clear skies, holographic trees, people walking and talking about stupid things. Little China never changes.

“V?” 

She turns her head away from the window. Night City looks nice. But it’s not. In reality, this city that she loves so much will swallow her up and spit her out. 

Her fingers fiddle with the rings on her left hand. Silver, shiny and new. V doesn’t enjoy thinking about why she felt drawn to them when she first saw them in a market in Kabuki. 

She doesn’t enjoy thinking about how she’s one half of a whole now. V doesn’t enjoy feeling this way, not when her other half is somewhere in cyberspace.

The woman sitting in front of her clears her throat. 

“I know it’s hard, V–“ The woman starts, and V knows she’s in for some lecture about grief and love and all that other bullshit.

So V interrupts her. Because no one knows how hard it is. No one. 

V scoffs, “No, you _ don’t  _ know. Don’t pretend like you do, okay?” She tells her. The woman smiles, jots something down in the notepad that sits on the desk. V has half the mind to snatch it up and read whatever she’s writing.

The woman — V needs to find out her name. 

The woman crosses her legs and leans back into the black office chair. It’s new and sleek. Everything in the office is sleek and fancy and fucking reeks of corpo money. 

V can’t believe Panam convinced her to come here. 

“Would you like to talk about him, V?” she asks. Her eyes are so cold, like steel. V curls into herself, taps her foot against the black wooden floor. Everything’s black, lit up with red neon lights. It looks more like a movie set than an actual office, V realizes.

Is that what her life is now? A fucking movie for everyone to enjoy, at her expense? 

V didn’t ask for this. She didn’t ask for a rockerboy to climb inside her head, scoop out everything that made her V. 

It’s gotten to where she doesn’t remember what made her V. Was it the way she did her gigs? The way she laughed? 

“I don’t want to. Wanna talk about something else.” V answers. The click of her boots against the floor as she taps doesn’t get any softer. If it annoys the woman, she doesn’t let it show. 

The woman sighs, sets down her glasses. The movement tussles her blonde hair. Blonde hair reminds V of Meredith Stout. 

V got her killed. She knows that. But Meredith was just the first on a long list of V’s victims, victims that include Johnny and herself. No doubt about it.

A paper crinkling brings V back to reality. 

She looks down at the desk, catches the woman folding a paper in half. The notes she was writing are out of V’s view now. They’re being tucked away into a drawer in the desk. 

Whatever the woman knows that V doesn’t. It’s gonna haunt V, knowing that someone knows her brain better than she does now. 

Maybe that’s the problem. She got too. She got too into her head. Problem is, it doesn’t belong to just her anymore. It belonged to two people.

Now it belongs to nobody. V’s barely even using the damn thing. All she does is stay in her shitty mega building, in that apartment where Johnny slapped her, tossed her around, smashed her head into her window. 

Is it wrong to feel safe in that apartment? Would others leave as soon as they could, try to escape the painful memories? Would they fix the dents in the window? 

V hasn’t. She lets everyone see them. 

“V?” the woman says. V doesn’t know how long she’s been calling her name. She thinks she saw her mouth move seconds ago. 

Was it seconds ago? How long has passed between then and now? How long has passed between losing  _ him _ and losing _ her mind _ ?

V shifts in her seat, crosses one ankle over the other. Her boots clack against the black desk. Black and red everything. 

Like blood, she thinks. Like the blood she spilled, still does, so many times. Mornings are full of it, so are nights. That’s how a merc works, though. That’s how a  _ corpse _ works. They bleed through their ears, cough up blood on restroom tiles, and convince their friends that they’re okay. 

V taps her fingers against the armrests of her chair. The back of it is so stiff that it forces V to sit straight. Is that intentional? Are they molding her? Is the woman trying to make her perfect enough so that they can start experimenting on her?

V doesn’t know what corporation is in charge of this therapy office. It’s like Panam said, though. Everything is owned by a corporation. Her life included. 

She can see him in the room's corner. His shadowy figure, with a cigarette in between his teeth. The click of a lighter, and then a flame illuminates his face. 

It’s wrong, though. His face is wrong.  _ His face is– _

V averts her eyes. She looks down at the black floor, pictures herself falling into that void.

“What’s wrong, V?” the woman asks. If V were anyone else, she wouldn’t pick up on the false concern. She would think that this woman in front of her, with the red corpo dress and red heels, was truly worried for her. 

V knows better. She shakes her head, “Nothing. Not any of your business, anyway.” V’s right leg shakes, bounces up and down like a jackhammer. That shadowy figure. She can still see it in the corner of her eye.

He hasn’t gone away. Smoke is billowing up, up,  _ up _ into the air. If V reached out, she could touch it. Touch _ him _ . 

Fear worms its way into her heart. She doesn’t want to touch him. Instinct tells her to, that reflex that draws her into him. He’s a fucking magnet. He takes her and keeps her close to him. 

Always takes, and he never asks.

_ Asked. _ He never asked. 

“V, I don’t believe we’re getting anywhere.” The woman sighs. She closes the drawer with the notes. The writing that V wants to see. She locks it away. Permanently. 

The woman smooths down her dress and stands up. Walks towards the door. She opens it. She’s letting V go. 

“I cannot help you if you do not want to be helped, V. Come back when you’re ready to talk. Truly.” 

V doesn’t think she’ll ever be ready for such a thing. Not now, not in 100 years. 

What they went through. No one will understand. Truly. 

V stands up, adjusts the collar of her jacket, smooths down her leather pants. If she wears his jacket, she can pretend he’s still with her. 

She can’t forget him if she wears his jacket. She can’t forget him if she dreams of him every night, dreams of him begging her to save him. 

She remembers him when she cries for him at night, when she curls into a ball on her bed, clutches at her stomach because it pains her. 

Losing him pains her so much that she grows nauseous with the feeling of grief. It hurts her to her core. 

Her eyes are wet. Tears collect at the bottom of her eyelids. She looks down at the floor, avoids eye contact with the woman as she walks through the door.

V doesn’t say thanks or anything like that. Tears choke her throat up. She wouldn’t be able to get the words out. Inside of her throat, there is a feeling threatening to leap out. 

She’s not gonna cry. 

V sniffles, wipes away the stray tears that made their way down her cheeks and into her shirt. 

She’s not gonna cry in the hallway. She’s not gonna say a thing to the doctors passing her by, giving her a strange look. 

They’ve all seen her like this before. V doesn’t understand why they look at her so strangely when this is her fifth time here, her fifth time crumbling after a session. 

It’s worse every time. 

The heel of her boots clicks against the tile floor as she walks towards the stairs. She avoids the patients, the doctors, the nurses, everyone. She takes sidesteps so she won’t bump into any of them. 

She does the same outside on the sidewalk. 

She doesn’t touch anyone.

V gets to her building. She doesn’t say hi to Wilson, or Fred. 

She says nothing to Barry. 

She just moves into her apartment, crawls into bed. 

Nibbles meows a hello. V reaches down, pets him, scratches her nails against his head. Nibbles purrs, and moves onto the bed, clings to her side.

V has a cat. A cat she took in with someone. 

The shadowy figure is in the room's corner again. He’s sitting down on her couch, with his legs spread. Is it  _ their _ couch? 

He says nothing. V’s grateful for that. She doesn’t know what she would do if he spoke in that low baritone voice of his. 

That’s not her best friend anymore, that figure that haunts her vision. 

_ That’s not him. _

That’s not him, she repeats.

She repeats it to herself until she falls asleep. 

When she wakes up, she repeats the same thing over and over. 

That’s not him in the corner of the room. 

_ That’s not Johnny. _


End file.
